Pacific islander workers set to be joined by families in 2023-24

Pacific islanders are generally not a great problem to anyone so this is a pretty good idea. Melanesians are a particularly desirable group. I grew up with them around (mostly TIs) and rather liked them.

Polynesians can be more of a problem. Maori are Polynesians and they have a high crime rate. Polynesians such as Tongans and Samoans are however generally very religious so that has a beneficial influence. The crime rate in Tonga is a small fraction of the crime rates in African populations. See here


The Australian government has committed to enabling Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme workers on one- to four-year placements to bring their families to Australia.

In a statement, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said family accompaniment was "expected to commence with up to 200 families of PALM scheme workers in 2023-24".

"The location of families will depend on the interest from PALM scheme workers and employers participating in the initial phase. This may include several regions across Australia," it said.

But there is a lot to sort out before the first families arrive — Pacific Islands Council of South Australia chief executive Tukini Tavui says there are about 800 long-term PALM workers in the state alone.

He said accommodation was a hot topic during the national stakeholder consultations that ended in November. "As you would imagine, there's a lot of challenges, a lot of restrictions in that space," Mr Tavui said. "So that would obviously be a deciding factor in terms of where [the government] would start a pilot.

"And then, obviously, the family support — how do the secondary [visas work] in terms of health and education?"

The families will not have access to Medicare, meaning employers will need to organise health insurance.

Mr Tavui says Naracoorte near the border of Victoria in the south, where many long-term PALM workers are employed, could be a good place to host the first families.

"Somewhere like Naracoorte looks like it has the capacity, but accommodation would be a challenge," Mr Tavui said.

"That might be the case in a lot of our regional areas, particularly in SA."

Teys Australia employs 137 Pacific workers in Naracoorte and another 1,500 along the east coast of Australia.

The company said in a statement that it was "actively considering how it might support families from the Pacific to settle permanently in Australia".

Alongside affordable housing, schooling and health care, Teys listed welfare support, including community and church groups, as key considerations for the government.

Naracoorte-Lucindale Mayor Patrick Ross said the town would be "totally lost" without its migrant workers.

He said it would be "incredibly difficult" to house the families of workers in any region and that council was looking at strategies.

Mr Ross said schools would welcome new students with "open arms".

Mr Tavui said people had been enquiring about family accompaniment visas since early 2021. "There's clearly more than 60 per cent of workers who are here, with families back home, who'd be interested," he said. "[It] obviously comes with quite a lot of excitement."

Mr Tavui said families would likely be allowed to stay for as long as the term of an applicant's employment.

"I think, from the last conversation, there's definitely an intention to allow a family to stay in the country for the same duration as the primary visa holder, whilst obviously looking at some of the challenges around that in terms of whether the work runs out," he said.

DFAT said consultations about detailed policy design would take place in the first quarter of 2023.

"The Australian government is listening to the views of Pacific and Timor-Leste governments and other key stakeholders to shape the implementation of this policy," it said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-10/pacific-worker-families-family-accompaniment-visa-palm-scheme/101829572

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New South Wales stamp duty schemes will benefit few and could push prices up, experts say

Both the New South Wales government and the opposition say they're determined to get more singles, couples and families into the housing market by altering the rules on when stamp duty is owed.

If elected in March, Labor is promising to expand the current stamp duty exemption for first homebuyers so it applies to properties up to $800,000 and offer a reduced duty on properties up to $1,000,000.

Currently stamp duty can only be waived on properties up to $650,000.

Meanwhile, the Perrottet government's stamp duty reform, which passed parliament last year, allows first homebuyers to choose between paying stamp duty or a smaller annual land tax.

It's for properties up to $1.5 million or vacant land up to $800,000 and officially comes into effect on January 16.

Both parties say their schemes leave New South Wales buyers better off but the experts aren't entirely convinced.

Stamp duty has long been criticised as the most inefficient and unproductive tax which hinders those trying to enter or remain in the property market.

And Sydney is still the most expensive place in Australia to break into the market; although the median price in many suburbs dropped by more than 20 per cent over the last year, according to Domain.

Some analysts have warned that slashing stamp duty could have unintended consequences.

Suddenly putting more money into the hands of buyers, who will in turn be able to make higher bids on houses, could push up property prices, according to policy coordinator Jesse Hermans from independent research institute Prosper Australia.

"If you give buyers more money by cutting their taxes or giving them cash grants, then that's going to up prices and then the vendors are the ones that are actually going to pocket that as an increase in house prices," Mr Hermans said.

"It's like a leaky bucket in that so much of the subsidy is leaking back towards existing property owners."

Property economist Cameron Murray also expects to see property prices climb thanks to a lighter stamp duty burden on buyers, but doesn't believe the increase will be dramatic.

He says this is because of the current decline in property values across Australia — a trend which is expected to continue through 2023 — and the fact fewer first home buyers are looking to enter the market now.

"We've just had this doubling of first home buyers in 2020 and 2021 so we're in the shadow of that and there's a finite pool of potential first home buyers that you can draw from," Mr Murray said.

"Labor's proposed $800,000 cap would also exclude many in a housing market like Sydney so the effect on prices might not be as bad as it could be."

But for many first home buyers, not having the stress of forking out for stamp duty is simply an unequivocal win.

For Noam Okewenwu, it would mean owning a home in Western Sydney six months earlier than anticipated.

He's recently been looking at properties around $400,000-$500,000 in the Canterbury area.

"Stamp duty will cost me about $15,000 dollars up-front. This is a large amount I can do without. It's definitely a no-brainer to me. This will definitely assist me in getting a home," he told the ABC.

Mr Hermans and Mr Murray predict both parties' schemes will speed things up for people like Mr Okewenwu, who are very close to buying, but won't open doors for many other hopeful homeowners.

Nevertheless, the government's First Home Buyer Choice scheme will provide valuable data on people's willingness to choose land tax over stamp duty.

A land tax has only ever been introduced in one other Australian jurisdiction, the ACT, which started its 20 year transition away from stamp duty in 2012.

Mr Murray says giving people a choice between a land tax and stamp duty is the "most minimal policy change I can think of" and believes governments would get more value from investing in more public housing.

"This is why in the 1950s and 1960s the government went and built housing, and let the tenants buy it at a discount and that's one of the ways we got home ownership up ... it increased from 42 per cent before the war to 72 per cent in the 1970s," he said.

But Mr Hermans believes Premier Dominic Perrottet's pet project will be an important test. "We really need to see some pilot projects in terms of these reforms [because] we've been struggling to get any sort of tax reform going in Australia for over a decade."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-10/nsw-house-prices-could-rise-with-stamp-duty-changes/101838172

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A grassroots revival of conservative politics

John Howard and Peter Costello are right to remind the federal government that we are ‘robbing the future to pay for [the] present’. With Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ warning about Australia’s ageing population setting up the scene for an ‘important announcement’ (which will probably mean the stage 3 tax cuts will be removed and taxes will be increased), the time is ripe for the Coalition to put forward what they do best – reforms. Coinciding the reforms required within the party (as set out in the recent review of the party) with a policy platform based on conservative values will provide a clear distinction between Labor and the government-in-waiting. But that alone will not be enough. What is needed is a grassroots revival of conservative politics in Australia.

The green-Left’s long march through our institutions has been facilitated by conservative voices remaining silent. This is the natural disposition for conservatives, but with the green-Left dominating the echo chamber of contemporary politics, this disposition is not sustainable unless we are happy with politics becoming as one-sided as an ABC Q+A panel. But what is conservatism in the Australian context?

Conservatism in its Hobbesian sense is less about a focus on unthinking ‘tradition’ as per Fiddler on the Roof, and more about having a strong government to ensure a stable and free society. Sir Edmund Burke regarded English liberalism as better than the revolution-to-liberty path taken by the Americans and the French to what the English had already achieved through a strong state, the separation of powers, and the Westminster tradition that was stable enough to make daily life predictable, yet flexible enough to allow governments to govern. Until recently, Australia was such a place, where citizens have rights and responsibilities and individuals are rational beings best able to look after their own welfare (as per John Stuart Mill) while tolerating each other’s divergent views (as per John Locke).

This complex intertwining of conservatism and liberalism is at the heart of the Liberal Party’s ideas. Key differences between conservatives and the rest relate to the proper role of government in the economy and society. Limited government, equality of opportunity in healthcare and education, and policies towards an industry that enable profitable businesses are hallmarks of Australian political life. The conservative vision has always been one of facilitating a prosperous, cohesive, and egalitarian society where individuals are free to pursue their own idea of the good life.

However, former Prime Minister Scott Morrison suggested in the election debate that Labor is the party of visionary government. It was rather sad to hear that the Coalition’s vision under Mr Morrison had been relegated to fixing up Labor’s unfunded policy innovations. Morrison’s admission revealed a key weakness in contemporary conservative politics, one that is neither necessary nor historically the case. An economy that incentivises work, entrepreneurial activity, home ownership, and a comfortable existence have been key to conservative visions past that enabled Australians to flourish.

But in the absence of a conservative vision, the green-Left has been advocating communal living in high-density inner-city housing close to cafes and trams, powered by solar and wind, where people ride electric scooters, eat at vegan restaurants where one chooses what to pay, and generally live their lives with all their household needs outsourced to restaurants and other gig economy service providers. To be sure, there is some demand for such lifestyles, and small businesses can and do flourish in such circumstances, but this is hardly the environment to raise children and it is hardly sustainable as people age and their needs change. Yet much of our investment in infrastructure goes to supporting these lifestyles and subsidising government-mandated technologies while ignoring the regions and the primary and tertiary industries that are the true backbone of our economy.

The appeal of trendy inner-city living was lost during the pandemic lockdowns, with a major exodus from the cities to the regions. Many of my younger colleagues realised that living in a small apartment that was effectively a walk-in wardrobe was a horrid existence when there was nowhere else to go. Suddenly, home ownership became an issue and high-density apartments were revealed as little more than gilded cages.

Home ownership is increasingly a luxury for young people, but it was once a conservative-led vision that was achievable for some 70 per cent of the Australian population. While recent statistics show that overall home ownership rates remain relatively unchanged, the proportion of young people owning homes has dropped markedly. Removing obstacles to home ownership such as stamp duty are key to improving home ownership. Mortgage lending policies that restrict the ability of young people to own their first home might also be mitigated by government guarantees or some other such mechanism. But recent policies by conservative governments that remove stamp duty and replace it with land tax are not consistent with conservative values and avoid the hard work of reform we so desperately need.

Australia’s appetite for economic reform has diminished since the end of the Howard era. The goods and services tax (GST) was a major reform that transformed the Australian economy, but two of the political trade-offs are no longer serving us well. First, when the Democrats’ Meg Lees agreed to support the GST, it was not applied to all goods and services. Yet a consumption tax is the fairest way to raise revenue without disincentivising entrepreneurial activity. Earnings are not taxed as highly therefore consumers can choose to moderate their non-essential consumption rather than having their income taxed automatically beforehand. The doom and gloom that was predicted for the GST never happened. In fact, prices generally were reduced, revenue raised was higher than ever, and people were better off than ever before.

Second, the trade-offs with the states were too restrictive and stamp duty and other state-based revenues were not reduced as originally promised. As a result, removing stamp duty and replacing it with a land tax is antithetical to conservative values – how can you own your own home if you have to keep paying for it to the state government? Tax reform is low-hanging fruit for a conservative vision for Australia’s future prosperity and it will challenge Labor’s tired old higher taxes mantra.

For example, GST should be applied to all goods and services with no exceptions and no compensation, and the rate should be raised, for example, to 15 per cent. All state-based taxes such as stamp duty should be abolished and income tax rates should be adjusted to remove bracket creep and to stimulate the economy. This would (a) remove a major obstacle to home ownership, (b) remove disincentives for additional work and entrepreneurial activity, and (c) fit comfortably with conservative values. It would also go a long way to addressing the cost-of-living increases that are running rampant under Labor.

Comprehensive economic reform would also stimulate investment funding to reduce carbon emissions through nuclear energy. Nuclear would enable existing electricity generation sites to be updated and allow the existing workforces to keep their jobs and the existing transmission infrastructure to continue to be used efficiently. Labor claims nuclear is too expensive while at the same time talking up tax increases to ultimately fund, among other things, the cost overruns of Snowy Hydro 2.0 and the Rewiring the Nation policy. A conservative vision that enables technological neutrality in our energy industry while at the same time providing economic reforms that do not stifle private enterprise has all the advantages and none of the downsides of the green-left’s utopian policies.

Nuclear energy is on the cards for the Dutton-led opposition to provide a realistic alternative to the uncosted and socialist vision of our energy future, but there is more to it than just selling the technology. The green-Left’s renewables future leads inevitably to government control over private households’ energy use. Not enough has been done by conservatives to point out this obvious overreach of government power. Unlike the green-Left’s vision of a command economy, a conservative vision can be implemented with costed and adequately funded policies that achieve our social, environmental, and economic goals without reducing our individual liberties.

Saying you’ll be the same horse with a different jockey is non-policy. Simply doing the opposite of what the government of the day is doing is unoriginal. Sometimes it can be difficult to undo the legacies of past policies and it is prudent to be pragmatic rather than attempt to implement party preferences at all costs (as I have written about previously). But the Coalition’s recent electoral defeat provides an opportunity for renewal and to re-establish the conservative brand. A conservative vision should not be utopian, but it should be realistic, measurable, and demonstrably costed and funded. The same criteria can be used to debate Labor’s goals which, as per the party’s ideology, are proving already to be utopian and ultimately unrealistic.

Mr Albanese’s window of opportunity to blame the former government is now firmly shut. Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen’s swiftly sinking energy policy, the rushed jobs and skills ‘pattern bargaining’ legislation, and the obvious hard-left move to socialise industry and the economy provide a unique opportunity for conservatives to present a compelling alternative vision. This vision does not have to be at odds with the general mood of voters or conservative values. But it does require the support of a grassroots movement to counter the green-Left echo-chamber that dominates the news media, academia, big corporates, and the legal profession.

To be sure, Liberals past have tried to protect free speech and academic freedom, but in the absence of a critical mass of conservative voices in the public sphere, winning the hearts and minds of voters is going to require a concerted and sustained effort. Doing so must stem from political leadership and a willingness to defend conservative values and those conservatives who choose to speak out. This is no mean feat with the green-Left’s cohort of gatekeepers ready to shut down anyone who dares question green-Left orthodoxy.

Meanwhile, the left’s utopian policies are already leading us towards a dystopian reality. Only a grassroots revival of conservative politics will facilitate a compelling alternative vision to enable Australians and their families to truly remain one and free.

https://spectator.com.au/2023/01/a-grassroots-revival-of-conservative-politics/ ?

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Jim Chalmers meets with global counterparts to discuss economic coercion, flow-on effects of Russia

Mostly talking about how to deal with China

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has joined his counterparts from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand in calling for co-operation in the face of the “threat and use of economic coercion”.

At a meeting of the Five Finance Ministers, chaired by US Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, perspectives on global economic challenges were swapped.

While the focus of the meeting was around the ongoing economic ramifications of Russia’s illegal war on Ukraine, and the ongoing supply chain constraints caused by China’s Covid-19 management, the group also discussed the threat – and use – of economic coercion.

In a readout, Secretary Yellen said she had “underscored the importance” of close co-operation among partners and allies “to secure our economies”.

“The ministers also discussed the need for co-operation to respond to the threat and use of economic coercion,” the readout said.

“The ministers look forward to future engagements and reaffirmed their commitment to deepen co-operation to further shared priorities in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.”

Discussions of economic coercion have ramped up in recent years, and just last week Japan – as the current head of the G7 – called on the group’s other members to take a co-ordinated approach in cracking down on China’s “economic coercion”.

China’s economic moves in recent years, such as suspending imports of Australian coal and wine, and Taiwanese pineapples, prompted Japan’s Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura to call the actions a “clear and present danger” for global economies.

Secretary Yellen said the group had discussed the need to develop greater resilience against global supply chain disruptions caused by Russia’s war, the ongoing effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, and other factors”.

In his own statement, Dr Chalmers said the meeting was a “really valuable opportunity” to discuss the current state of the international economy, and look to how we can work together to respond to challenges”.

“While each of our nations enters 2023 from our own unique position, we all realise this year is going to be a very tough one for our economies and the global economy more broadly,” he said.

“Co-operation through the Five Finance Ministers group is especially valuable given the uncertain global environment – the insights gleamed from engagements like this one will assist as we continue to prepare for the May Budget over coming months.”

https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/jim-chalmers-meets-with-global-counterparts-to-discuss-economic-coercion-flowon-effects-of-russia/news-story/f2a6221fef4477cafe0d62e1da56b677

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Anthony Albanese fires off a VERY cranky tweet as he's hit with a list of 15 questions he 'must' answer about the Aboriginal Voice to Parliament

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has slammed Peter Dutton after the Opposition Leader sent the PM a list of questions asking for detail about his proposed Aboriginal Voice to Parliament.

Mr Albanese is hoping the country will support Labor's proposed parliamentary advisory body at a referendum later this year, but the plan has come under fire for lacking an explanation of just how it would work.

On Sunday, Mr Dutton accused the PM was treating Australians 'like mugs' and demanded Labor flesh out its plan by answering 15 questions about the make-up of the proposed Voice and its function.

Mr Albanese issued a furious tweet late on Sunday fuming about how Mr Dutton published his questions in an open letter to the media, when the pair had caught up and privately chatted at the cricket last week.

'So even though I talked with Peter Dutton on Friday at the McGrath Foundation event, he gives a letter to multiple media outlets as 'exclusive' on constitutional recognition and the Uluṟu Statement- a letter I still haven't seen,' Mr Albanese tweeted. 'People are over cheap culture war stunts.'

Mr Dutton hit back several hours later. 'You’ve had 7 months to answer questions. Friday at the McGrath Breast Cancer fundraiser wasn’t the place to discuss. Happy to talk anytime when you have the detail,' he replied.

Mr Dutton said his letter was issued on behalf of millions of Aussies 'who just want the detail'.

He claimed his rival was 'making a catastrophic mistake' by not providing 'accessible, clear and complete' information on the proposed Voice.

Mr Dutton added the government risked losing the referendum should they not let the public know exactly what it was voting for and believed the proposed voice will fail if questions aren't answered.

'People have got reasonable questions. There are many Australians if they had detail in front of them about a particular model, they could support the voice,' Mr Dutton told reporters on Sunday.

'You can't just say to the Australian public as the prime minister, 'you vote at an election ... on a Saturday and we'll give you the detail on the Monday'. It's a very serious decision to change our Constitution.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11612675/Anthony-Albanese-fires-cranky-tweet-Peter-Dutton-raises-questions-Voice-Parliament.html

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Liberal review heads in the Right direction

After considerable media teasing, the-anticipated report into the Liberal Party’s electoral failure last May has finally been released.

Conducted by former Liberal federal director Brian Loughnane and current federal frontbencher Jane Hume, the report exposes the ugly reality of what the Liberal party has become: a valueless, directionless, rudderless political and ideological ship.

Most of the pre-release commentary focused on the leaked findings: the election was a referendum on Scott Morrison and the Liberals failed to counter Labor and the Broad Left’s defining of him (although, admittedly, on Morrison the Left pretty well got him right); the party is too pale, male, and stale; there are too few women and ‘ethnic’ candidates for preselection and party leadership roles; that state divisions of the party are unfit for purpose and can’t organise a knees-up in a brewery; that targets for greater female representation be set, but not mandatory quotas.

But the really significant recommendations don’t relate to the media fodder.

Instead, they hone in on what is the Liberal Party’s fundamental weakness: it has forgotten what it stands for.

Hume and Loughnane highlight how the Morrison government tossed Liberal values and ideology to the wind in the face of responding to Covid in 2020 and 2021. They stress how important it now is for Liberals to rediscover and return to the party’s intellectual roots – not simply pay lip service to Menzies and his ‘forgotten people’ broadcasts – and once again become a party of the centre-Right. They rightly advocate the Liberals giving Australians a viable and reliable alternative to an increasingly hard-Left Labor.

If anything, however, Hume and Loughnane underestimate the magnitude of the Liberal challenge to resist the Left elite zeitgeist.

The Broad Left – Labor, Greens, Teals, like-minded independents, and loony-Left micro-parties – now constitute a strong and near-permanent electoral majority. That ugly reality is highlighted by Anthony Albanese becoming Prime Minister on a Labor primary vote of 32 per cent. In two-party preferred terms, in the May federal election preferences flowed to Labor two to one, compared to the Coalition. The electoral numbers are stacked against parties of the Right generally.

If the Liberals are ever to be in federal government again, they must do two things above all else. First, they must redefine their traditional liberal-conservative values in a mid-21st century context. Small-c conservative values, notably smaller government, market capitalism, and promoting individual freedoms in exchange for individuals taking personal responsibility for their choices and actions, are timeless and enduring, and remain as relevant now as they were in the time of Burke and Mill. On this, Hume and Loughnane have outlined a path ahead.

Second, and far tougher, is instilling and promoting traditional Liberal values in the generations that will dominate the electoral calculus until mid-century: the Millennials and Generation Z.

Millennials, especially, are the best-educated generation in our history. Until Covid struck, they lives in period of seemingly perpetually prosperity and affluence. They were too young to remember the Keating recession, and near 20 per cent interest rates. They never had it so good, one might say.

Ominously for the Liberals, they are also proving to be the most solidly, and stubbornly, Left generation in our history as well as the best-educated, a contradiction more sensible Boomer minds find hard to fathom.

Instead of growing more conservative as they go through life, as older generations including Boomers have, Millennials are clinging to the Left shibboleths of their youth. On climate change. On trendy social issues like transgenderism. On Big Brother, big taxing, anti-free market government. Demonstrating unabashed admiration for that naïve, Chauncey Gardner-like prophet of doom, Greta Thunberg.

Unless the Liberal party can find a way of translating the traditional and timeless values of the centre-Right into a form that Millennials and later voter generations can embrace, the Liberal goose may well be cooked. This isn’t to say it must accept the Broad Left reality: rather the Liberal challenge is to understand the Millennial mindset, and marry Liberal values to it.

Younger Liberals like new Victorian state MP, Institute of Public Affairs alumnus Evan Mulholland, have put their finger on a possible Millennial touchpoint. Mulholland urges a focus on helping younger voters getting a firm place on the housing ownership ladder, giving them a greater stake in their own lives and their own communities.

But that’s only a start if the Liberal party is to survive long-term as a part of government.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and the Hume-Loughnane report is sunlight for the Liberal Party. It is a big step in the right direction, and the Right direction. The risk is, however, that factional warlords, careerists, and blowhards in both the parliamentary party and party organisation do their level best to hang on to their internal influence and shut the window to the sunlight.

They must not be allowed to prosper. If they do, the Broad Left will dominate our politics for a generation or more

https://spectator.com.au/2022/12/liberal-review-heads-in-the-right-direction/

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The death of the presumption of innocence

The year 2022 may be behind us but the appalling circumstances surrounding the Brittany Higgins affair remain unresolved. From the moment news of the alleged rape of Ms Higgins became public, the presumption of innocence was sacrificed on the ‘believe-all-women’ altar. That the allegation was announced twelve months out from a federal election, that the alleged rape took place in the Parliament House office of a Liberal party minister and that Ms Higgins and the accused were Liberal staffers, provided a golden opportunity for base political instincts to override any statutory obligation or sense of duty.

No doubt conscious of heightened political and media interest and, seeking maximum publicity, two years after the alleged event occurred, Ms Higgins and her media-savvy boyfriend, David Sharaz, timed an interview with Network 10 broadcaster, Lisa Wilkinson, to coincide with the sitting of federal parliament. They got the response they wanted.

Then shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus, now the nation’s chief law officer, was quick to see political mileage. In his adjournment speech, he praised ‘demonstrations across our nation, (where) tens of thousands of women and their supporters marched and spoke for justice’. He referenced some of the placards, saying ‘on one, were the stark words, “Stop raping women,” on another, “Enough is enough”’.

‘It’s very clear the Prime Minister has made looking after Liberal party mates his main focus, – not looking after women…’.

The accused was plainly guilty, a conclusion endorsed by 2021 Australian of the Year, Grace Tame, who declared Brittany Higgins a ‘survivor’.

And if that wasn’t proof enough, former prime minister Scott Morrison, demonstrating his contempt for the presumption of innocence, brought the full authority of his office to bear by offering a fulsome apology to the alleged victim saying, ‘I am sorry. We are sorry. I am sorry to Ms Higgins for the terrible things that took place here’.

Despite the popular ‘guilty’ narrative, the federal police advised the director of public prosecutions there was insufficient evidence to prosecute. DPP Shane Drumgold ignored this advice, arguing, ‘there is too much political interference’. So a trial ensued. Then, with the criminal case in full swing, Lisa Wilkinson felt the need to maintain the lynch-mob rage by using an address at a Logie awards night to praise Brittany Higgins. So contemptuous of the court proceedings was she that ACT Supreme Court Chief Justice Lucy McCallum, ‘regrettably, and with gritted teeth’, postponed the trial by several months saying, ‘What concerns me most… is that the distinction between an allegation and a finding of guilt has been completely obliterated…. The implicit premise of (Wilkinson’s speech) is to celebrate the truthfulness of the story she exposed.’

After the trial was aborted and before the re-trial commenced, Mr Drumgold announced that he would no longer prosecute the case, even though he clung to his belief that there was a reasonable chance of conviction, as he had to weigh the effects of a second trial on Ms Higgins’s poor mental health. Presumably, in forgoing a conviction he took into consideration the risks to other vulnerable women.

And while the DPP judged Ms Higgins not well enough to continue with the prosecution, five days after abandoning the case Higgins declared she was willing to appear as a witness ‘to defend the truth’ in any defamation case brought by the defendant.

This calls DPP Drumgold’s judgement further into question and whether he himself was politically influenced.

In an address to graduates at the University of Canberra in April 2021, he wore his heart on his sleeve when he referred to Aboriginal people as ‘currently amongst the most imprisoned and disadvantaged people on the face of the planet’. Perhaps, given his own underprivileged background, he instinctively aligns with alleged victims regardless of evidence.

And in dropping the case, was he aware that nine days later, the Albanese government, having eschewed proper mediation procedures, would settle Ms Higgins’s claims against the Commonwealth and former ministers Linda Reynolds and Michaelia Cash for a rumoured $3 million?

Incredibly, in consideration for taxpayers meeting their legal expenses, neither former minister attended the mediation, notwithstanding both hotly contest Higgins’s claims of mistreatment while in their employ. And, disregarding taxpayers’ right to know, at Ms Higgins’s request, settlement details remain confidential.

Where is the outrage? The opposition remains conspicuously silent. So too most of the media and the legal profession.

So, while the accuser pockets millions of dollars, the accused remains presumed guilty by the federal parliament and the media and, is denied the opportunity to clear his name in court. What of his future?

To manage political fallout, the ACT government will hold an inquiry which will investigate the conduct of the prosecution, the defence and police, to ‘ensure the ACT justice system was robust and fair after both parties made allegations’.

Meanwhile, the Australian Federal Police Association accuses DPP Drumgold of attempting to ‘smear’ the AFP while the DPP alleges that police engaged in ‘a very clear campaign’ to pressure him not to prosecute. Without the case continuing, we will never know whether the DPP’s initial decision to proceed was sound.

No doubt the inquiry will find that the ACT justice system is fair and robust. The terms of reference will ensure that. But it will shine little light on the true state of justice in the ACT or, for that matter, Australia. Contempt for the constitution and human rights during the pandemic and the trials of Cardinal George Pell are more reliable indicators.

Indeed, the cynical forces behind party and identity politics which captured the Brittany Higgins case, clearly demonstrate that modern day authoritarians, guided by their ideological preferences, are prepared to bastardise the faithful application of objective laws.

Which begs the question, is the political-legal-media class now so captured that it is prepared to idly watch as the application of the rule of law and the pursuit of justice without fear or favour – the cornerstone of democracy – are effectively consigned to the dustbin of history?

As we enter 2023, if silence is any guide, the answer is ‘yes’.

https://spectator.com.au/2023/01/me-too-justice/

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Australia's carbon credit scheme is controversial

An official review of Australia’s $4.5bn carbon credit market has rejected allegations the scheme was a rort, concluding the system was “essentially sound” but needs an overhaul across regulation and transparency to boost public confidence.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen appointed former chief scientist Ian Chubb in July 2022 to carry out a review of Australia’s carbon credit scheme following allegations by whistleblower Andrew Macintosh that a majority of credits issued by the Clean Energy Regulator were flawed.

The Australian Carbon Credit Units scheme has attracted considerable criticism from environmental groups and others associated with the program, who say it is wasting taxpayer funds without cutting carbon emissions.

However, the official Chubb Review released on Monday found the ACCU scheme was essentially sound and it had not found evidence of widespread problems in the sector.

“In recent times, the integrity of the scheme has been called into question – it has been argued that the level of abatement has been overstated, that ACCUs are therefore not what they are meant to be, so that the policy is not effective,” the Review found.

“The Panel does not share this view. While the Panel was provided with some evidence supporting that position, it was also provided with evidence to the contrary.”

The Review found there may be several reasons for the “polar-opposite” views.

“One is likely to be a lack of transparency, meaning that third parties cannot access the relevant data and so different conclusions can be drawn, and all genuinely held.”

Still, the review led by the former chief scientist has suggested breaking up the powers currently managed by the Clean Energy Regulator in order to boost the effectiveness of the scheme with separation of governance, ACCU purchasing and method development functions.

The Australian Government purchasing of ACCUs “should be moved out of the CER and into another Australian Government body to avoid actual or perceived conflicts of interest,” the Review found.

“The multiple roles of the CER, in developing methods, regulating projects and issuing ACCUs, and administering government purchase of ACCUs, results in potential conflicts of interest and risks reduced confidence in scheme arrangements and governance.”

It also called for legislative changes to maximise transparency, data access and data sharing “to support greater public trust and confidence in scheme arrangements.”

Among 16 recommendations made in the Review are for no new project registrations be allowed under the current avoided deforestation method and the Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee should be re-established as the Carbon Abatement Integrity Committee “as soon as practicable” with adjusted terms of reference, membership and functions.

The federal government has accepted in principle all 16 recommendations and said it would consider funding arrangements to implement the changes through the 2023-24 budget.

The Carbon Market Institute said it was critical to “align and escalate public and private investments” in industrial decarbonisation and emission reductions across the economy.

“This is a scheme that has developed and evolved over more than a decade, and investors and the community should be encouraged by the Independent Review Panel’s findings that its framework is sound, and the proposed improvements can also now be embedded to ensure a more transparent, robust system that can be scaled up,” CMI chief executive John Connor said.

The review followed criticisms by Mr Macintosh, an academic at ANU and the ex-head of the government’s Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee. Professor Macintosh has described the carbon market as “largely a sham” and said the majority of carbon credits did not represent real cuts to emissions.

More recent analysis by investment house Allan Gray concluded concerns about the integrity of the ACCU scheme were “valid and warrant further investigation”.

Some 30 per cent of ASX 200 companies use carbon credits to reduce their emissions – almost half specifically note their use of ACCUs, Allan Gray found.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/business/chub-review-rejects-carbon-credit-rort-claims-but-finds-scheme-needs-overhaul/news-story/1b6520bd2f581f75a706cb2e2526f49c

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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At last: An infuential voice against medical censorship

Dr Kerryn Phelps AM has been a household name in Australia since the 1990s. I remember well her frequent appearances as a guest on television, in her role as the then President of the AMA, the Australian Medical Association. In a career of advocacy that few medical professionals will ever have, the former MP has combined a sharp intellect with a concern for the community and a stage presence where necessary.

On Tuesday, however, she was trending for quite different reasons, following a bombshell article regarding her submission to the federal government’s Long Covid Enquiry. Phelps described the ‘devastating’ experience of her wife, Jackie Stricker-Phelps, who suffered multiple persistent neurological symptoms following her first Pfizer dose. Unfortunately, Phelps went on to suffer a cluster of difficult cardiovascular symptoms with her second dose of the same. Judging by the way her message resonated with large sections of the online community, although some predictably interpreted her honesty as dangerous ‘anti-vaxx’ sentiment, it is clear that Phelps was giving a voice to many whose similar suffering has been compounded by isolation and lack of acknowledgment from doctors. She frankly identifies what could be the root cause of this hesitancy on the part of doctors: ‘Regulators … have censored public discussion about adverse events following immunisation, with threats to doctors.’

The protracted crisis brought about by SARS-CoV-2 has revealed much to everyday Australians about how government and health care interact in Australia. But if our situation is indeed that medical censorship has been impacting on the care of patients, the condition of Australian Medicine is both serious and complex. At AMPS, the Australian Medical Professional Society, we believe that is indeed the case, but it is necessary to dissect back to some core issues and first principles.

With very few exceptions, the doctor has the greater share of knowledge in the doctor-patient relationship. However, this asymmetry is balanced out by the doctor’s fiduciary duty to put the interests of the individual patient first, together with the fact that the patient holds the power to accept or reject any advice. The concept of free informed consent also entails a duty of candour and disclosure on behalf of the doctor, who must therefore be free of any conflict of interest.

As many have clearly identified, a culture of fear has entered into Health Practice in Australia, which directly relates to a Joint Statement from AHPRA [Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency] and the National Boards on March 9, 2021. Our thoughts were expressed in a letter to AHPRA CEO, Mr Martin Fletcher, dated April 14, 2022: ‘AHPRA’s gag orders impede professional health advice and patient advocacy based on individual patient risk/benefit assessment by labelling such professional advice “the promotion of anti-vaccination statements”, “health advice which contradicts the best available scientific evidence” or “seeking to undermine the national immunisation campaign”.’

Whether your GP or Specialist, Nurse or Chiropractor, has analysed the Joint Statement is not necessarily relevant: it is impossible for clinicians to be unaware of the dangers posed to them by what Phelps calls ‘threats to doctors’. Compounded by other cultural factors in the pandemic, this becomes the basis for understanding the conflict of interest which has been created in practitioner-patient relationships across this country, which may play out in different ways. For example, if the health practitioner has clinical concerns from a critical appraisal of Covid vaccinations, formulated through his or her knowledge or experience, then that health practitioner risks damaging consequences through regulatory action every time he or she exercises their clear duty of candour, inherent in the practitioner-patient contract. Alternatively, that practitioner may elect to not disclose their concerns, which is potentially breach of their contract.

A further scenario must be discussed also: a clinician who is aware of the dangers to his or her career, may elect to never to engage with any material or discussion in their personal research or interactions with colleagues and patients, if that material or discussion seems to go against the thrust of the national immunisation campaign and related public health goals and directions. This may absolve the clinician superficially. However, it is an outworking of a culture of censorship and a conflict of interest, in which many patients will feel frustrated and undermined in the therapeutic relationship, for example when trying to deal with vaccine adverse events or persistent problems which they attribute to vaccination.

Hence, although many of us believe the Joint Statement of AHPRA and the National Boards to be unlawful, it is at the root of a dangerous shift in Australian Medicine. Furthermore, AMPS believes that Australians need to be aware of changes to the National Law for Health Practitioner Regulation introduced in October in the Queensland Parliament. We believe these changes further supplant the place of the individual in Australian Medicine and distort the clinician-patient relationship. To step up our advocacy in this matter, our members are speaking out on the ‘Stop Medical Censorship’ National Tour.

Public health considerations should always be weighed appropriately, but once a therapeutic relationship is entered into, the individual can never be supplanted by any notion of public health. However strongly this notion is appealed to, it can never outweigh a doctor’s duties of candour, disclosure and informed consent. The doctor-patient relationship cannot lawfully be redefined by any interest or priority that conflicts with the best care of the patient, in that doctor’s best assessment. If conditions producing a serious compromise or conflict of interest become embedded in the long term, then a cultural shift in the Australian Medicine will have taken place, to the detriment of doctor, patient and public alike.

With these things in view, the honesty of Dr Kerryn Phelps, coming as she does from the Medical Establishment of this country, could not be more critically needed. The issues highlighted by her courageous submission, most especially the assertion of medical censorship in Australia, should be afforded the attention of all who care about this country and should transcend the left and right of politics. As difficult as her own journey as a patient must have been, together with the devastating experience of her wife Jackie, given the far-reaching implications of medical censorship, this could prove to be the most significant piece of advocacy of her career.

https://spectator.com.au/2022/12/phelps-breaks-ahpras-culture-of-fear/

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Complete Renewable energy is impossible

The replacement of fossil fuels (and nuclear) by wind and solar is said to be a ‘transition’ implying, like that from sail to steam and horse to motor power, that this is being inexorably pushed by consumers adopting a lower cost technology. In fact, the ‘transition’, wherever it is taking place, is due to government subsidies and regulations. Not one significant unit of wind or solar power generation anywhere in the world has been installed without such assistance.

Moreover, a wind/solar-rich electricity system requires expensive features that are naturally present or available at a trivial cost in systems dominated by coal, gas, or nuclear generation. Among these are ‘system strength’ and frequency control, both of which are automatically present in the ‘synchronous’ spinning machines in coal, gas, and nuclear plants but need to be carefully managed and separately arranged for the ‘asynchronous’ wind and solar facilities.

A solar/wind system also requires considerably more transmission – probably at least four times as much as conventional systems – in order to bring electricity from the inescapably less dense solar and wind facilities. Compared to the current value of the national transmission system of $21 billion, the government has stated that $100 billion (an additional ‘$20 billion direct investment unlocking $58 billion of private co-financing’) will be needed to make a renewable rich national transmission system fit for purpose.

But the greatest cost is how to ensure a system based on variable wind and solar energy can operate to the standards required of a contemporary society. The solution is first, to overbuild the variable facilities in the hope that this will offer a geographic spread to iron-out erratic supplies of sunshine and wind, and secondly to arrange for storage through batteries or pumped hydro facilities like the Snowy 2.

For Australia, a ballpark cost estimate is offered by CSIRO’s Chief Energy Economist Paul Graham, who reckons Australia will need to spend $500 billion to convert the current (coal-based) system to renewables. This is half the cost he estimated five years ago.

$500 billion is twice the value of the current system, (offset by coal and gas fuel savings that amount to perhaps 5 per cent of total costs). Even so, the CSIRO appear to have massively understated the cost.

David Wojick examined the estimated costs of batteries for America. Noting that at present Tesla charges $US650,000 per megawatt hour for the batteries themselves and that a ‘fantastically low estimate’ of future costs offered by the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory speculates this may fall to $US143,000 per megawatt hour, the battery costs for the US would be $US150 trillion and $US36 trillion respectively. That is for a $US23 trillion economy.

Batteries have only a ten-year life. Thus, without even counting their progressive deterioration, this means in the US the energy ‘transition’ element of electricity storage alone would cost somewhere between 24 and 60 per cent of GDP per year. On top of this we have the poles and wire costs and the costs of the wind/solar generators themselves.

Such extraordinary estimates should come as no surprise in Australia.

Paul McArdle, head of the highly regarded consultancy WattClarity, showed that even if there was an overbuild resulting in up to 20 per cent of the wind having to be wasted at any one time, with a perfectly planned and operated system 9,000,000 megawatt hours of storage would be needed. This is equivalent to 25 Snowy 2 installations or 70,000 of the original Hornsdale batteries at a price tag of $6.3 trillion or close to three times the Australian GDP. With a ten-year battery life, this would require an impossible annual expenditure on the battery element of supply equivalent to 30 per cent of GDP each year!

This estimate has received corroboration.

ARENA is funding eight batteries costing $2.7 billion and totalling 2,000 megawatts (power output capacity) with 4,200 megawatt hours (energy storage depth). That is just two hours of full output to flatten the batteries. 2,000 megawatts is five per cent of total grid demand in 2030, when AEMO’s forecast maximum demand is 44,000 megawatts.

Most experts believe a seven-day storage depth is the bare minimum to back up a reliable renewables grid. One week of 168 hours and multiplied by maximum demand means 7,392,000 megawatt hours in 2030. Given the announcement’s cost of $2.7 billion per 4,200 megawatt hours of storage, this is $643,000 per megawatt hour. Multiplying this ratio by the total storage required gives an eye-watering cost estimate of $4.7 trillion in 2030 or, with a ten-year battery life, 22 per cent of GDP each year.

Subsidies to wind and solar have resulted in them replacing coal to gain a 20 per cent share of electricity generation. This has already resulted in a trebling of wholesale prices. But the costs of accommodating wind and solar increase exponentially and continuing along this path will cripple the economy.

https://spectator.com.au/2022/12/batteries-not-included/

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Victimized men

Bettina Arndt

It was 2014 when I first heard from Andrew, a young Queensland dad, who was being denied contact with his two young girls. From then on, he wrote regularly updating me on his eight-year Family Court marathon, where he lost round after round, despite his wife being declared an unfit mother after a court-ordered psychiatric assessment. She very effectively used false violence accusations to get away with moving with the children interstate and endlessly dragging out the legal proceedings.

Two weeks ago, he killed himself. Since I heard the tragic news, I’ve been trawling through his old emails, so sad that this good man had lost all hope.

I also recently learned that last month another of my correspondents took his life. He first wrote to me a few years ago after being shocked by his treatment at an ACT police station when he tried to report an assault by his partner on him and his young daughter. He was told by police, ‘You don’t really want to report it. Go home and sort it out.’ When he tried to talk to his wife, she left with his daughter and took out a violence order against him. ‘You cannot believe the despair that fathers of this country are in,’ he said.

I’ve been haunted by the deaths of these two men, wishing I could have done more. The last message I received from Andrew earlier this year ended this way: ‘Your blogs are a ray of sunshine to me. In a very foreboding, stormy ocean you’re a beacon of hope and of understanding.’

Despite our despair at the overwhelming stormy ocean, we can’t afford to give up. I am more convinced than ever that we need to give men reason to believe that one day things will change. While it’s true there’s no hope of swiftly bringing down the mighty feminist edifice currently making life intolerable for so many men, I have to believe that by exposing the injustice eventually we will win over the huge majority of men and women who care about fair treatment of men and boys.

For now, that means taking solace even in small victories, savouring every sign of the slightest breakthrough. It is critical we get organised, bringing together all the small organisations working to help men, to work together to chip away at the current anti-male prejudice and injustice.

This year, we saw the first sign of a concerted international fightback against the feminist domestic violence industry. DAVIA (Domestic Abuse and Violence International Alliance is a new coalition of organisations promoting domestic violence and abuse policies that are science-based, family-affirming, and sex-inclusive. Launched late 2021, this has expanded from a handful of participant groups to 70 organisations from 24 countries coordinating campaigns to challenge the anti-male bile around domestic violence being promoted by international bodies across the world.

The United Nations is a classic example. This year DAVIA actually managed to block passage of two typically anti-male UN resolutions after issuing a press release which exposed their crazy thinking. Like the claim that ‘women are 14 times more likely to die in a climate catastrophe than men,’ – a nonsense statistic included in a UN resolution allegedly exploring ‘the nexus between the climate crisis, environmental degradation, and related displacement, and violence against women and girls’. Days after the DAVIA issued their worldwide press release highlighting what the UN was up to, the resolution was removed from the agenda.

No big deal? Arguably there’s little cause for concern about the UN’s posturing. As UK journalist James Delingpole writes, ‘The UN is a terrible organisation: a bloated talking shop for technocrats, bureaucrats, kleptocrats, third-world beggars, globalists, socialists, and other overindulged, grasping cry-bullies, meddlers, and no-hopers.’

But Delingpole points out that, despite UN founding articles requiring equal rights for men and women, the organisation persists in ‘picking on men and blaming them for everything that is wrong’.

That matters. These big international organisations are helping create the zeitgeist that pushes lawmakers into passing more and more draconian legislation targeting men, that prevents judges from allowing fathers contact with their children after cooked-up violence allegations, that green lights propaganda into our schools presenting boys as villains and girls as victims and that encourages despairing men to give up hope.

That’s why DAVIA’s work is important. Just last month DAVIA coordinated activities celebrating November 18 as The International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Men, with activities and media events in Argentina, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Northern Ireland, Peru, Spain, United Kingdom, the United States, and in Australia.

A global Twitter campaign was launched to promote the hashtag, #StopViolenceOnMen with over 36,000 tweets sent out over a four-day period. In India, the #StopViolenceOnMen hashtag trended, ranking in ninth place among all hashtags.

Then there were the women in Argentina who invaded the offices of the Minister for Women protesting for Falsely Accused Day on September 9, another event coordinated internationally by DAVIA. I loved the feisty language – here translated from Spanish – in their letter to the Minister: ‘Even so, you, Madam Minister, together with your cohort of ideologues, officials, and communicators, will surely insist on denying that false complaints exist, that thousands of men are victims of them, and that the infamous judicial industry that feeds this order, is causing unparalleled harm to the rule of law.’

Making this all happen is Ed Bartlett who has been working for many years promoting fair treatment for men. He’s the one who started the ball rolling to put together an international coalition to tell the truth about female violence.

Under Ed’s guidance, DAVIA is currently launching an ambitious project in January to block the expansion of the Istanbul Convention (IC) in Europe, a treaty ostensibly intended to combat violence against women in Europe. You may remember the fuss two years ago when the Hungarian Parliament rejected the ratification of this dreadful treaty declaring that the measure promoted ‘destructive gender ideologies’.

Too right. The IC treaty reeks of feminist ideology, promoting the usual tired dogma about domestic violence being caused by power imbalances that favour men over women. As Stephen Baskerville explains, ‘The Convention has nothing to do with violent crime. It is a political innovation that promotes radical political ideology. Under the guise of protecting crime victims, it institutionalises sexual ideology and transfers dangerous powers to activists engaged in gender warfare against the family, religious freedom, men, and civil liberties.’

Now it looks like the Convention is in trouble. Nine years after the IC came into force in 2014, Bulgaria, Czechia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, and Slovakia have not ratified the treaty, Turkey withdrew in 2021, and Poland has announced its plan to withdraw.

Ed Bartlett has firm plans to ensure this is only the beginning. His recent email announced DAVIA is in communication with the groups in Bulgaria and other Eastern European countries that led the fight to block the Istanbul Convention in their countries. He’s also learned that, in Israel, the powerful Likud Party has agreed to not join the IC.

Not bad, eh? Here’s DAVIA’s latest summary of everything that is wrong with the Istanbul Convention. And if your organisation would like to join forces with DAVIA, you can get more information here: davia@endtodv.org.

If we pull together, there’s much we can do to ensure the New Year brings better times for men

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/01/the-power-of-many/

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Chinese ban on Australian coal about to end

China’s state-owned companies have begun reaching out to Australian coal exporters to revive trade within months, as Beijing moves to end its two-year ban amid worries about winter energy shortages and mounting costs on China’s steel industry.

Trade Minister Don Farrell did not comment on the unravelling of China’s coal black-listing – the centrepiece of a $20bn economic coercion campaign against Canberra – which was conveyed to Chinese industry at a private meeting in Beijing and has not been made official.

But industry sources told The Australian that traders had been approached by a small number of Chinese state-owned enterprises in recent weeks, inquiring about the availability and price of cargoes of Australian coal.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday said “stronger efforts should be made to ensure safe and stable energy supply”, a further sign that President Xi Jinping had greenlit the backflip.

“As the momentum of economic recovery and stable growth continues, energy demand is on the rise,” Mr Li said in comments released after a meeting of the country’s State Council.

China’s National Development and Reform Commission told three central government-backed energy companies and the country’s biggest steelmaker, Baowu, on Tuesday that they would be allowed to resume Australian coal imports, according to separate reports by Bloomberg and Reuters.

The unwinding of the ban – which comes amid reports of power failures in Heilongjiang, in China’s freezing northeast – would be the first backdown in Beijing’s trade coercion campaign against Australia, which spanned coal, timber, lobster, cotton, beef, barley and wine. Most of Beijing’s black-listing was never official.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was aware of reports about lifting of the ban, but indicated it had not received confirmation by Chinese officials.

“It has been the Australian government’s consistent view that the resumption of normal trade across the board between Australia and China would be in both countries’ best interests. That is true also of coal,” a DFAT spokeswoman said. “Meanwhile, the Australian coal industry has been highly successful in finding alternative markets.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/chinese-freeze-begins-to-thaw-on-coal/news-story/90242ad84b77744af30d1680654dbe09

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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‘Good on her’: Thorpe backs Price over calls for more details on Voice

A Green/conservative axis! Sure death for the referendum

Greens senator Lidia Thorpe has praised Coalition senator and leading No campaigner Jacinta Nampijinpa Price for calling for more transparency around the Voice to parliament as she insisted the party still did not have a final position on whether it will support the referendum.

As the Greens’ spokeswoman on First Nations issues, Thorpe said that while she and Price approached the Voice from “a completely different angle”, they shared a similar scepticism about the need for another advisory body and the Indigenous leaders “handpicked” by the Albanese government to steer the process.

“Both of us in our collective experience have seen numerous advisory bodies try and fix things and fail. She has also seen the hand-picked spokespeople for our people, who she doesn’t agree with, and nor do I,” Thorpe told this masthead.

“I think transparency and accountability through any process that this country wants to take about making a decision on our lives is paramount – and I think that’s what Jacinta is bringing out and good on her.”

Thorpe added that people needed to respect there was not a singular homogeneous view across the Indigenous community, saying: “We have different ways that we think would bring this country together. Jacinta has hers and I, through the black grassroots movement in this country, have another way.”

Price – who has argued the Voice proposal lacks detail, is racially divisive and will add only another bureaucratic layer to failed governance structures in Indigenous communities – is expected to join forces with conservative Indigenous commentator Warren Mundine to spearhead the No case in the lead-up to the referendum, which is due in the second half of this year.As the Nationals’ sole Indigenous MP, Price’s strident opposition to the Voice was a key factor in the party room’s decision last year to formally oppose it, which triggered the defection of Calare MP Andrew Gee, a Voice supporter, to the crossbench.

Replacing Gee on the opposition frontbench on Wednesday, veteran Nationals MP Darren Chester said he was not against the concept of the Voice but believed it was a “step too far” to enshrine this body in the Constitution, saying it could be legislated instead.

The Greens’ policy position is to progress all three elements of the Uluru Statement from the Heart – – the Voice to parliament, a treaty with Indigenous people, and a truth-telling process – while demanding Labor implement the outstanding recommendations from the decades-old Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the Bringing them Home report.

But in comments that add to the confusion around the Greens’ policy, Thorpe said it was incorrect to characterise the party’s position as broadly supportive of the Voice.

“That’s not the position. The position is that we’re in negotiation and that we’re not going to say that we support something when that undermines our negotiation power,” she said.

“So we don’t support anything. We don’t support a No campaign, we don’t support a Yes campaign until we see Labor action those recommendations that save our people’s lives and provides a guarantee that our sovereignty won’t be ceded.”

She called for Labor “to provide legal evidence” from an international constitutional expert that Indigenous sovereignty would not be ceded by being “incorporated into the colonial Constitution”, adding: “If we get evidence to the contrary – and we don’t have an opportunity for treaties – then we are doing the wrong thing.”

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said the Voice would not have any impact on sovereignty, but would instead “improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. It will ensure the government hears from local communities about local solutions and how to address existing policies that aren’t working”.

Thorpe’s hardline negotiating position has been criticised by Voice advocates as political gamesmanship, including by high-profile Aboriginal academic Marcia Langton, a leading member of the Albanese government’s Indigenous Voice referendum working group, who last year accused the Greens of demanding “impossible” trade-offs.

Thorpe’s position also appears to be at odds with previous positions advanced by her federal colleagues, including leader Adam Bandt.

In the lead-up to the federal election last May, Bandt described the Voice to parliament as something that “cannot fail”, saying the party’s policy was to “improve, not block vital legislation” and it would work to further truth, treaty and voice.

“We may only get one chance at a referendum to enshrine a Voice to parliament in the Constitution,” he tweeted in April.

In October, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young declared she would be doing “everything I can” to support the Yes case.

Asked whether her position conflicted with the broader Greens membership – Resolve polling from December showed 85 per cent of Greens voters backed the Voice – Thorpe said she took her guidance from the party’s grassroots First Nations network, known as the Blak Greens.

“So if there’s anybody who disagrees with that policy, well then they need to chase it up with the Blak Greens,” she said.

She suggested a treaty process could deliver dedicated First Nations senate seats, which she said would be “real power” rather than an advisory body whose advice “was either taken or it’s not”.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/good-on-her-thorpe-backs-price-over-calls-for-more-details-on-voice-20230104-p5ca85.html

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Is Snowy 2 an impossible dream?

The massive Snowy hydro-electricity "2.0" project is rolling on, but without a chief executive, after the collapse of one of the key builders and with a growing question about what it will deliver.

This has been a season of drama for the controversial project, which is building 27 kilometres of tunnels and seeking to revolutionise Australia's electricity grid.

When Snowy Hydro boss Paul Broad's snap resignation was made public in August, the reason given was delays with the project.

But within days, he said it was a clash with Energy Minister Chris Bowen.

"Issues have arisen obviously between what I think of the world and what Chris Bowen, minister for energy, thinks of the world and, rather than create a drama, I resigned," Mr Broad told the ABC at the time.

"I didn't want to put the company in a position where we were seen to be fighting at every level with whatever the government may or may not want to do."

Just a week later, Webuild reached agreement with the Clough administrators to buy Clough's Australian organisation including offices, brand, credentials, business references, senior management and office personnel, as well as its share of the Snowy 2.0 and Inland Rail contracts, with the related workforce.

Webuild has a backlog of work in Australia worth 8.9 billion Euro ($14 billion) and has completed projects including the airport rail line in Perth.

The Snowy Hydro 2.0 project is a mega project. The first tunnel, completed in October, was a 10-metre-wide, 2.8-kilometre stretch to create access to a cavern 800 metres underground where a new power station would be housed. And it only gets harder from there.

The original scheme produced electricity by buildings dams and releasing the water stored in them to power turbines.

Construction began in 2019 on the so-called "Snowy 2.0" project, which involves a system of "pumped hydro".

Two existing dams will be linked by a 27-kilometre underground tunnel and a new underground power station that will allow water to be pumped and re-used – because it will flow through the turbines twice.

It's due to be finished by 2026. But even without delays, there are problems. One of the biggest dangers for Snowy Hydro 2.0 is that it will be too late to prevent a catastrophic shortfall in energy.

Ageing coal plants are shutting, but many of the closure dates rely on the machinery holding out — and the economics holding up.

Dr Dylan McConnell from the School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering (SPREE) at University of New South Wales says there is some good news.

"Pumped hydro projects like Snowy 2.0 are a form of energy storage that provides a useful source of dispatchable generation, useful for balancing the grid," he said.

The reason they provide balance is they can pump and fill their reservoirs when there's abundant energy supply and then provide generation later when supplies are low, such as when the sun goes down or if it's not windy.

But the bad news, he says, is that delays to the project could have a cascading impact on the amount of power in the system.

"The market operator doesn't see a delay to Snowy 2.0 having a material impact on the reliability outlook for New South Wales," Dr McConnell says.

"However, that assessment is also contingent on some significant transmission projects being delivered in a timely manner."

But the clock is ticking. "A key question is how much of the anticipated projects — particularly transmission projects — might be delivered in a timely way," he says.

The Snowy Hydro 2.0 project is set to have a huge impact on the price and reliability of our power.

Beneath the ground, workers are busy digging and building. On the surface, the problems keep mounting.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-06/snowy-hydro-could-change-our-electricity-grid-bring-cheap-power/101795640

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How Labor unleashed youth crime wave in Queensland

One Queensland family’s Christmas has been ruined by a gang of recalcitrant juveniles who have repeatedly terrorised their family home. A week before Christmas three youths broke into their home and stole car keys.

The initial crime spree was foiled when the juveniles hit other cars while trying to get away. They were then scared off by locals responding to the commotion. But the juvenile criminals took the keys and have been back twice (including on Christmas Eve) scoping out the home in balaclavas.

Understandably this young Queensland family now struggle to sleep in their own home.

The local police know the offenders but their hands are tied by Queensland’s lax youth crime laws. Instead, police have told the frightened family that they should install a fence and buy a German shepherd. Why should Queenslanders have to turn their homes into a jail when it is the criminals that should be there?

When pressed one police officer said they need to write letters asking for tougher laws and that they should “blame the Labor Government.”

Queensland has been shocked by the tragic stabbing death of a young mum of two, Emma Lovell, on Boxing Day at her home in North Lakes. Her sad passing is the regrettable culmination of the surge in break-ins committed by juveniles since 2019. But for the grace of God, any break in creates the risk that something tragically goes wrong.

Why have juveniles been breaking the law with abandon since 2019? In August 2019, the Queensland Government changed the Youth Justice Act. In the words of the Government’s Explanatory Note about these changes, they had the “objective of removing legislative barriers to enable young people to be granted bail.” The changes told judges that the principle should be “detention as a last resort”, and that “the bail decision-making framework” incorporated an “explicit presumption in favour of release.”

Judges must be shaking their heads at the chutzpah of the Queensland Premier who under pressure given the spate of juvenile crime last month cowardly told judges “to do their job”. The Premier’s own Government told the courts just three years ago to rule with an “explicit presumption in favour of release!”

The data shows the clear impact of Labor’s liberal approach to young criminals. In the 12 months before the bail changes in 2019, there were a reported 6184 “unlawful entries” by juveniles. In the 12 months before November last year (the last month data is available for) there were 10,108 reported “unlawful entries” by juveniles.

There has not been an increase in unlawful entries by non-juveniles, in fact they have slightly fallen since 2019. This provides strong evidence that Labor’s youth bail changes are to blame.

Following Labor’s changes to bail there has been a staggering 63 per cent increase in juveniles breaking in to people’s homes and businesses. This is a recipe for a repeat of the tragic outcomes we saw on Boxing Day.

In response to the clear failure of their laws, the Labor government has tried a couple of times to put a band aid on this open wound. In 2021, the Government announced that courts could require juveniles to wear GPS tracking devices when on bail. Since then just 8 juveniles have been fitted with such devices. With 27 juvenile break-ins occurring every day in Queensland over the past year this will hardly make a difference.

Now again the Labor Premier is trying to her tired schtick of blaming others while announcing a hasty response that is meant to distract attention from the real issue. The Government’s latest thought bubbles include trialling engine immobilisers and the appointment of a new Police Assistant Commissioner.

It is time for the Queensland Government to stop eating Christmas pudding and instead digest some humble pie. Their botched 2019 reforms have clearly led to a youth crime epidemic and it is time to roll back to the laws we had pre-2019 before more innocent people are killed.

An online petition calling for an “Emma’s law” to strengthen bail laws has already received 134,000 signatures. The only reason the Queensland Government is not listening to this outcry is that the Premier is too proud to admit she was wrong.

If the Government will not act maybe it is time for us to take up the advice of that frustrated policeman and all write letters calling for action.

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/opinion-how-labor-unleashed-youth-crime-wave-in-queensland/news-story/e6200494364f732c67c59f8bc7125611

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Australian woman opens up about her devastating vaccine injury

The wife of high-profile doctor Kerryn Phelps has detailed the horrific side effects in her first interview about her battle with a debilitating Covid vaccine injury.

Jackie Stricker-Phelps told Daily Mail Australia her life as she once knew it is gone and there is no prospect of recovery from her vaccine injury.

The former schoolteacher's symptoms started minutes after her first Pfizer jab in May 2021 and she is still unable to walk without pain.

She is one of thousands of Australians who suffer devastating long-term side effects, but feel like the government and medical regulators deny it's happening.

'I have had debilitating neurological and rheumatological effects since the initial Pfizer vaccine,' she said.

'I had a surge of heat in my head, my face went bright red, my gums and sinuses started to throb, I felt my hands and feet go numb and I developed pins and needles all over my torso, arms and legs. 'I could hardly walk, and so begin the next 19 months of hell.'

Ms Stricker-Phelps said she saw a neurologist the next day, who closely monitored her symptoms, and later also visited a rheumatologist.

'I have had visual disturbance, nerve pains, burning gums, flushed face, hair loss, musculoskeletal inflammation, and night sweats,' she said. 'I tried multiple prescribed medications, steroid injections into my spine and hips for pain.

'Two of my specialists have confirmed it is a vaccine injury and say they see other people with the same adverse events.'

Both she and Dr Phelps, who also suffered a serious vaccine injury from her second Pfizer jab, investigated the possible risks before getting vaccinated.

'We were told the most common symptoms were a sore arm with maybe a temperature for a few days and a rare possibility of anaphylaxis. We were both told it was far safer to get the vaccine than the illness,' she said.

To manage the risk of anaphylaxis, Ms Stricker-Phelps had her shot in a hospital and was observed afterwards by Dr Phelps, another doctor, and a registered nurse.

When her symptoms began, she claimed the nurse told her 'this is not anaphylaxis so you can go home' despite her barely being able to walk.

Ms Stricker-Phelps said her symptoms had not shown any significant improvement and frequent flare-ups made her unable to perform many basic tasks.

In the midst of a recent flare-up, she found it extremely painful to walk, communicating was difficult, and she struggled to leave the house.

'Flareups are even harder to deal with as there are no protocols in place for treatment,' she said.

To deal with the latest one, her specialist sent her for 'yet another spinal injection' to try to reduce inflammation across her body.

Even when the flare-ups subside, exercise is difficult because of the pain she suffers throughout her body.

But she said the hardest thing was having to live an isolated life to avoid catching Covid.

'I cannot receive any more of the current vaccines so am not protected from Covid,' she said. 'I have to isolate from family and friends, and avoid group activities such as parties or the theatre as the virus is transmissible even from vaccinated people.'

Ms Stricker-Phelps said she had no idea if and when her condition would improve, let alone recover, because so little was known about it. 'The best chance of recovery is for more effort and funding into research to find the underlying mechanism of the injury and for specific treatments to be developed,' she said.

'But first, the government and the medical profession need to acknowledge the extent of the problem.'

'The cloak of silence has been lifted and people are starting to talk about long Covid and vaccine injuries,' Ms Stricker-Phelps said.

Because the government never publicly acknowledged the full risk, she argues Australians didn't have proper informed consent when they decided to get the jab.

'It is important that people have fully informed consent by being made aware of the risks and then make their own decisions about their vaccinations,' she said.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11592089/Kerryn-Phelps-wife-Jackie-Stricker-Phelps-opens-Covid-vaccine-injury-time.html

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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New Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 is detected in Australia

An Omicron subvariant that has been tearing through parts of the United States was detected in Australia just before Christmas, health authorities have confirmed.

The highly transmissible XBB. 1.5 subvariant, which has been dubbed “The Kraken”, was detected in small numbers in the two weeks to December 24, NSW Health said on Thursday.

There is no evidence the subvariant causes more severe symptoms than the original Omicron Covid strain, but it is reportedly behind more than 40 per cent of new Covid cases in the US.

Data from NSW Health’s two-week Covid summary released on Thursday showed Covid cases had decreased 40 per cent in the week to December 31. Positive cases amounted to 22,281 compared to 37,371 in the previous week to December 24.

The BR. 2 Omicron subvariant was the most common source of infection, but XBB. 1.5 had been detected, a statement said.

Infectious diseases expert Professor Robert Booy told Sky News existing vaccination levels and natural immunity meant the subvariant would not be a major risk to the community.

“Our vaccines probably do protect against it and we shouldn’t be overly concerned although I’ve called it ‘extra bad boy’ - it’s just a way of remembering the name XBB.1.5,” he said.

“It’s more transmissible, it’s more active, young and able to get around but it’s not more severe it’s not more virulent, it’s not more likely to put you in hospital.”

https://www.couriermail.com.au/coronavirus/china-underrepresenting-severity-of-covid-outbreak-says-who/news-story/d70925e9658b126bb799b88842e19801

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Major investors telling Rio to ‘not go so hard’ on carbon but focus on returns, says chairman

Rio Tinto faces a growing shareholder push to soften its focus on decarbonising its operations in favour of returns, according to its chairman, Dominic Barton.

Mr Barton became the Rio chairman in May, and told a KPMG podcast before Christmas he had already noticed a shift in focus from some of Rio’s institutional shareholders, with even previously strong supporters of the company’s push to cut its carbon emissions shifting their focus to cash returns to shareholders.

Rio accelerated its decarbonisation plans in October 2021, announcing it planned to spend $US7.5bn ($11bn) on renewable energy and other projects to try to halve its scope 1 and 2 emissions by the end of the decade, while maintaining its goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050.

The company fleshed out those intentions at its annual investor day in November, laying out plans to spend up to an extra $US600m by 2026 to build solar, wind and battery generation to power its Pilbara iron ore operations, on top of a previous $US2.1bn decarbonisation spend in the division, and to buy renewable energy plans for those of its assets connected to the grid.

But Mr Barton told KPMG’s UK chair, Bina Mehta, that major investors were asking how Rio could maintain its shareholder returns in light of that spending, saying even some strong supporters of its decarbonisation plans were asking questions about Rio’s spending priorities.

“Rio Tinto wants to be net zero by 2050, and we’re going to cut our carbon emissions by 50 per cent in 2030. That takes a lot of capital,” he said. “So investors are saying we want you to do that. But we also want the returns.”

Geopolitical uncertainty has thrown a shadow over a broader post-pandemic recovery, and rising inflation has hit major economies across the world. With central banks lifting interest rates to combat inflation, investment returns are likely to be lower in the coming year after a long period of strong stock performances.

Amid the wreckage of technology stocks and poor returns elsewhere on the market, resource companies made up eight of the top 10 performing stocks on the ASX 200 in 2022, on a total return basis, led by coal miners Whitehaven Coal and New Hope Corporation. But with doubt hanging over China’s short-term economic recovery due to the spread of Covid-19, analysts are divided over whether strong commodity pricing will continue into 2023.

“One thing I’m finding interesting – even though I think I’ve been in this role for about five months now, at the beginning it was all ‘That’s great, focus on decarbonising’,” Mr Barton said.

“Now there’s a little more, ‘You know what, maybe you don’t need to go as hard on that one’, and the (shareholder) return side is picking up even from some investors who’ve been talking about being strong proponents of the other side.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/major-investors-telling-rio-to-not-go-so-hard-on-carbon-but-focus-on-returns-says-chairman/news-story/2af172449450470bc8653d604228a1cc

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Problems ahead for Australia

As 2023 gets underway, Australia is at last shaking off its pandemic derangement syndrome, yet it is considerably weaker than before it descended into Covid mania. In 2019, former treasurer Josh Frydenberg finally managed to bring government spending more or less in line with revenue for the first time since the Global Financial Crisis and net debt was less than 20 per cent. And former energy minister Angus Taylor had also wrangled the government into keeping its emissions reductions target in line with what could be achieved with existing technology.

Yet what a difference three years make. Net debt is now 23 per cent of GDP and on track to pass 28 per cent in three years. Additionally, the former federal government abandoned its principled position of not committing to emissions reductions that it did not have the technological capacity to deliver. Now, the new Labor government will drive up government spending further and has embarked on a recklessly rapid and ruinous reduction in emissions that cannot be achieved in either the short or long term, will drive up energy costs, and send businesses broke or offshore, without reducing global emissions. It is this sort of quixotic tilting at wind turbines that has brought the UK and Europe to their knees, but Prime Minister Albanese and Energy Minister Bowen are determined to follow in that continent’s ill-fated footsteps, egged on by the Greens, the Teal independents, and half the Liberal party. China and the rest of the developing world will laugh all the way to the bank at our greenhouse gas follies.

Yet that’s not the end of the economic pain. China’s abandonment of its delusional zero Covid policy spells uncertainty for Australia with further disruptions to supply chains and an unwelcome prolongation of the inflationary spiral that is that price we are forced to pay for our profligate spending over the last three years.

Perhaps, with Covid creating illness and economic hardship at home, China may be less likely to launch an attack on Taiwan, unless President Xi wants to distract from domestic discontent. Australians had better hope that 2023 does not usher in a war in the Taiwan Strait because this nation and its allies are woefully unprepared.

By presenting a picture of abject weakness in its shambolic departure from Afghanistan, the US encouraged President Putin’s ill-judged military invasion of Ukraine. That Putin now finds himself in quagmire does not alter the fact that the US and UK governments are depleting their military supplies doing the lion’s share of arming the Ukraine. Yet neither has the capacity to fight a war in Europe as well as a war in the Pacific. This alone might tempt President Xi to launch an attack on Taiwan sooner rather than later.

Meanwhile, our ageing submarines are not fit for service and their nuclear replacements are decades away. The notion that meeting our urgent national security needs can be delayed until we have the wherewithal to build our own nuclear submarines is a dangerous joke, but nobody should be laughing. With the Middle Kingdom more bellicose than at any time in its history, we need the capacity to credibly deter war and contribute to the protection of vital sea lanes now, not in several decades. Put simply, the federal government needs to bite the bullet and commit to buying nuclear submarines off the peg. Instead of building nuclear submarines, we would be far better off building a nuclear industry with not just the capacity to service subs, but to build small modular reactors so that we can guarantee that we have the unlimited low-emissions energy on demand that we will need to ensure we maintain the high standard of living that Australians have every right to expect. While we are at it, we should also develop the safe nuclear waste storage industry that Australian scientists pioneered nearly half a century ago with the development of Synroc.

Critically, two-faced Janus should prod us to take an unflinching look back at the blunders we committed over the last three years and learn the lessons. We not only abandoned our pandemic preparedness plans with their emphasis on focused protection of the vulnerable, while allowing the strong to work and the economy to function, we abandoned the scientific method, imposing censorship and propaganda in place of rational debate. We must never let this happen again. Yet the threat that history will repeat itself is real. The same charlatans who cheered on the imposition of tyranny justified by Covid pseudo-science now plan to convert their strictures into a permanent abrogation of our freedoms in the name of climate-change alarmism. This ideology poses an intolerable threat to our prosperity and freedom and unless we defeat it there will be no happy new year.

https://spectator.com.au/2023/01/happy-new-year-2/

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Tax office vows to crack down on glam ‘influencers’ and their ‘gifts’

The ATO is coming for ­Australia’s multimillion-dollar “influencer” industry, with a promise to tax glammed-up social media stars on gifts they receive from companies, make them pay GST, and stamp out bogus deductions.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal Australian Taxation Office staff have an arsenal of “data-matching” technologies to help them compare tax returns of “Insta-famous” people with the lifestyle and valuables on display in their online posts.

An ATO spokesman confirmed the fresh crackdown, saying: “If you are paid in-kind, such as with goods or other benefits (for example, being able to keep an item or outfit used in a post, or being ‘gifted’ something) … you are subject to the same income tax and GST treatment as normal cash or credit payments.

“We have sophisticated data-matching and analytical tools that enable us to identify people that may be under-reporting their income from a range of activities.”

Influencers who make an income from their posts are required to pay tax, even if it’s just a hobby, and if they make more than $75,000 they also have to register for GST.

The value of all “gifts” given to influencers in exchange for promotional posts must be declared as income. It is Australian law that influencers disclose publicly when they are promoting “non-cash benefits” by using the hashtags “ad”, “gifted” and “sponsored”.

Gifting is an increasingly common practice for businesses and public relations executives instead of cash payments. “Cash is really simple, but if you are gifted product in return for a service, it is much harder to police,” said one high-profile accounting executive, who did not want to be named.

“It is a grey area … the tax office will say, take the recommended retail price, then you must pay tax on that, but the key question will always be: what is the benefit for the recipient if they have to pay tax on something that they don’t technically pay money for?

“It is well and good to walk around with a $5000 handbag, but if you can’t afford the tax, what is the point?

“It is a game-changer that will have influencers rethinking the situation.”

One celebrity agent, who also did not want to be named, was thrilled to learn of the crackdown, saying “the gravy train is over for influencers”. “A crackdown will take a much-needed weed whacker to the infestations of wannabe Kardashians of late,” the agent said.

Sydney influencer Suzan Mutesi said she was not surprised the ATO was clamping down. “You have to adjust to the rules,” she said. “If you classify yourself as a sole trader, report how much you earn. “I think just do it right because then it doesn’t bite you in the back later.”

However, when it came to reporting the value of gifts, Ms Mutesi said the process was quite complicated because it could be hard to know their true value.

“It’s hard. There are certain things they (companies) would give you that are samples and they’re not for sale. How do you value that,” she said.

“Let’s say, if Gucci sends you a bag it can be different. It’s not going to be what the consumer will buy, because they are buying it so theirs will probably be bigger and have more details.

“Sometimes they personalise your gifts, like sometimes I get perfumes with my name on them or they’ll put on a personal message, so it’s different.”

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/ato-vows-to-crack-down-on-glam-influencers-and-their-gifts/news-story/3af35155e2dd4aa057853cc76152cc90

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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